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OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

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Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#21

Post by dak1 »

ward wrote: post #11

I like it. For some of these though, I feel like it would be nice if an "order" was established between different books (or the lack thereof mentioned). At least, I do not immediately seem to spot a mention of this. What I mean is that I assume College Physics comes before University Physics, but at what point are you ready to start Astronomy? Also, where does College Physics for AP Courses fit in? (that might be mor…

Part of the idea behind Connexions (and later OpenStax) is that educational resources are made available under a CC license, and tools are provided so that educators can use, combine, re-write, and modify the educational texts they use.

In practice, many choose to use the books as is, as they're already pretty high quality, but if you go to cnx.org and do some searches on the database, you'll find a number of variations that have been created by different professors and universities as well.

I don't think the intent (or resources) is there to give you every book for every course in a pre-selected order.

Disclaimer: I'm a former employee and developer for Connexions and OpenStax CNX, although I haven't been there for several years, so my understanding may be out of date.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#22

Post by rectang »

andrepd wrote: post #9
rectang wrote: post #3

> OpenStax at Rice University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity Good to see that OpenStax is a 501(c)(3) charity, which is the nonprofit classification where donations are tax-deductible and thus restricted. That makes it harder for the organization to be influenced too directly by sponsors, since donations cannot be used for purposes which would yield direct marketplace advantage. I also see that they use a permissiv…

I disagree. I would very much prefer a "GPL type" share-alike licence. The basic principle is: I'm releasing this content to the public, with the expectation that anyone that builds upon it will also do the same. Otherwise people can take what I did, use it for their profit, and not contribute back, hurting the overall community. This doesn't seem fair to me.

I don't happen to share your concerns and am happy to make it easy for businesses to use my work. There's room in the world for both Open Source and Free Software, and both do a lot of good!

I think the 501(c)(3) is the more crucial point above. For what it's worth, both the Free Software Foundation and the Apache Software Foundation are 501(c)(3). Restricting the use of donations to avoid commercial advantage makes it much harder to subvert the nonprofit.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#23

Post by lolptdr »

skh wrote: post #19

I teach mathematics at a community college and use free materials in my courses or use materials that I’ve created. I never use paid materials in my courses. The reason I can do this is because math doesn’t change from year to year. I’m in a subject whose content is static. Even so most open textbooks are quite bad. I’ve only found a few that were really good. Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t…

I couldn’t agree more. Perhaps we need a curated list with endorsements from those who use it in their own teaching curriculums and another list of users who endorse it.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#24

Post by krn »

skh wrote: post #19

I teach mathematics at a community college and use free materials in my courses or use materials that I’ve created. I never use paid materials in my courses. The reason I can do this is because math doesn’t change from year to year. I’m in a subject whose content is static. Even so most open textbooks are quite bad. I’ve only found a few that were really good. Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t…

> Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t change much is hard. There’s a need for publishers but just not a need for one that charges hundreds of dollars for a textbook.

That's what Dover Books[1] and its series on Mathematics[2] are for.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Publications

[2] http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-mathematics.ht...

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#25

Post by HarryHirsch »

krn wrote: post #24
skh wrote: post #19

I teach mathematics at a community college and use free materials in my courses or use materials that I’ve created. I never use paid materials in my courses. The reason I can do this is because math doesn’t change from year to year. I’m in a subject whose content is static. Even so most open textbooks are quite bad. I’ve only found a few that were really good. Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t…

> Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t change much is hard. There’s a need for publishers but just not a need for one that charges hundreds of dollars for a textbook. That's what Dover Books[1] and its series on Mathematics[2] are for. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Publications [2] http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-mathematics.ht...

The OP is talking about teaching community college mathematics. That's not introductory university mathematics; if you are lucky it's Pythagoras' Theorem and quadratic equations. The purpose of community college is to provide the students with a degree certificate that they can use for another degree.

My current institution's nursing school has a set text called "Calculate with Confidence", which teaches the kids to calculate concentrations, unit conversions, measurement uncertainty and similar things. Someone might say that these are essential skills in nursing, and they are, but the incoming students are supposed to have learned these things from their college science courses, from their degree that got them admitted into nursing school. Yet here it is again because all previous education didn't take.

60 % of incoming students at my institution must take remedial math, up from 50 % a few years ago.

That's community college. If you think that's cynical or exaggerated you are insufficiently cynical.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#26

Post by therealmarv »

uniqdom wrote: post #8
therealmarv wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can find the sources when you go to the link "view online" which will redirect you to the http://cnx.org website to all the sources (OpenStax was Connections/CNX in the past). It includes all HTML/XML, images and special styling. Here an example for the algebra book (scroll down to downloads): https://cnx.org/contents/CImQfPDv@3.11:GfaWl1GG@4/Introducti... Actually they also produced epub in the past (disclaimer:…

You mean to download the Offline ZIP, right? that's the main book source?

yes, right. They produce the real books, PDF, online version out of this "source code" version.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#29

Post by jimhefferon »

lolptdr wrote: post #23
skh wrote: post #19

I teach mathematics at a community college and use free materials in my courses or use materials that I’ve created. I never use paid materials in my courses. The reason I can do this is because math doesn’t change from year to year. I’m in a subject whose content is static. Even so most open textbooks are quite bad. I’ve only found a few that were really good. Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t…

I couldn’t agree more. Perhaps we need a curated list with endorsements from those who use it in their own teaching curriculums and another list of users who endorse it.

http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ is useful, I think.

Re: OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks

#30

Post by tssva »

wowtip wrote: post #27

Hmm, any technical reason for providing only PDF and no epub format?

From their support site.

"Do you have .epub versions of your books?

We no longer support .epub versions of our OpenStax books. Only a small percentage (around 1 percent) of OpenStax readers reported using the .epub format, and maintaing these versions is costly; instead, we focus on providing our online web view, PDF, iBooks, Amazon, and print versions. You can see what formats are available for your subject at OpenStax.org."

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